Jilted - new work!

I felt so good during this photo shoot... Free, without burden or bother. That's what I want for the bride in my series.

One more photo to share, of a different nature: our book cases!!

That's it. I should write more next time, but I'd like to think the photos speak for themselves today.

ARGH be finished already!

I wish I had something to share. Some progress. Photos! But it all depends on a few things.

1) Our book cases (the biggest part of the living room!) are in the process of being painted, but it's a complete nightmare. Taping everything to prevent transfer, and then when removing the tape shortly after you end up taking a bit of paint from the wall with you so you can retouch those marks, too. ARGGHHHHH!!! *breathe*
I know they will be so gorgeous when they're done, my book cases painted and filled with books and other items. But right now, I hate those bitches. Hmpf.

2) Also, we ordered some curtains, including a big one for the kitchen. Buuuut of course they switched the height and width and now it's too wide and too short. So that's just lovely.

So that's... more on that later.

We're getting ready for the Leste Mert (Thursday) - a livestock market where we will be as well, showing off our big-assed (literally) but gorge-ass cows. My Daisy is coming too!
There's such a wonderful wintery & countryside atmosphere... all shops are open plus there's stalls everywhere. Pretty lights. Gluhwein & oliebollen (traditional winter goodies here in Holland)... Ah. Really looking forward to it.

Here's some pics from last year to close off this post:

Reading living room

The correct term for my favourite space, indeed. My living room has gotten a little love in this month's ELLEgirl Korea. (Image in the absolute bottom-right is mine!)

The text in my case would translate to something like this:
Why this is my favourite room: even though we're still working on decorating our new home (curtains are ordered, book cases will be made), the living room is such a comforting space to me, which is the main reason I selected this place; my living room is perfect for me. I can work there as well as relax. But mostly it's a space of warmth. I've been wanting a place like this for years and now I finally have one. I can't wait to see what it looks like a few months from now when it will be completely finished...!

On another note, I joined facebook a while ago and have a fan page there too, so you could join that. I use it to post news bits about my photography, publications and my book reviews.
My former portfolio, Karin-Elizabeth.com, now functions as a portal to my network pages and blogs and of course my new portfolio.

Blame it on the bookcases. And reviews.

This will be the first post in many to follow. It's time I get more invested in this blog. Lately I have forgotten that I even have one, updating it only sporadically with a photo and a link here and there.

Blame it on the bookcases.
We have been working on making our own book cases for a while now, sparing a few hours to work on them whenever we can. Making your own book case is a lot of work, let alone making two of them.
We're in the process of actually painting them the colour brown we selected (a perfect blend of brown to match both the very dark chocolately colour of our sofas, and the coppery warm brown of our gas hearth's frame). That didn't go so well initially, what with the paint being environmentally friendly and thus water-based (and thus very hard to put on). But we're finally making headway. Can't wait to fill my living room with books and travel mementos, picture frames of loved ones and a candy jar here or there.

Curtains.
Our curtains are finally here. I love light, and try to keep it in our house as much as possible, but I am not too fond of direct sunlight. It's not good for plants and items will discolour. So we decided to find a solution using our curtains, and this is what we came up with:

I feel an everyday kind of magic whenever I am in the living room now during the day. The lightplay calms me. The living room is definitely my favourite place to be. Even more when we have our book cases ready. More pictures will follow when everything is finished. I have a photo series in mind :)

Review-portraits
And apart from working on the book cases, I've also been putting a lot of hours into my book reviewing portraiture series ('review-portraits', as someone called them), which has recently been featured in Korea's ELLEgirl magazine.

Since renovating & moving, I'd gotten really behind on my reviews and have been trying to get caught up, and while there are some books that have long awaited a review, I'm successfully narrowing down my to-be-reviewed list.
I'm also considering expanding the website somewhat, but that's for the future.
You can find Reading & Reviewing at LibraryThing now, too. I'm still adding books.

This is pretty much it for now, but I will blog more often from now on.
There's always Twitter, for quick updates.

Eclectic reader?

The 3 newest R&R photos are so strangely different from one and other. I guess I really do read anything.

From left to right:
R&R 060 | Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (David Sedaris)
R&R 061 | A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
R&R 062 | Dead Until Dark - Sookie Stackhouse #1 (Charlaine Harris)

Read the reviews @ the Reading & Reviewing blog.